80s Underground Cassette Culture
Vol 1
Various
Contort Yourself DL/LP
The advantages of the format responsible
for the recent upsurge in cassette tape
usage were similarly behind the format’s
1980s heyday. The freedom to reproduce,
practical ease of recording and smaller
postal package size were big wins for
fringe artists in particular, and thus an
international underground of tape-released
music surfaced. This compilation by
Glaswegian label Contort Yourself joins the
dots between several obscure artists from
the era in suitably erratic fashion, filling four
sides of vinyl with murky proto-noise, prototechno,
and primitive industrial sounds
largely from across Europe.
Besides happily recording in lo-fi, the
common denominator between these artists
is a rejection of 80s excess and a pretty
uniformly angry mood. This had them all
coercing young electronic gear into odd new
timbres, such as Dutch new wave trio Ende
Shneafliet, blaring a maddeningly wobbly
high-pitched synth over proto-electro
beats on a track dating back to a 1981 tape
release. The primal drum machine backing
up “Assassins” by Sydney duo East End
Butchers is similarly brutal and ugly – a
bastardised nightmare compared to the
Moroder and Prince hits of the time made
with similar gear.
It’s tough to trace the direct impact
and influence of these obscure tracks, but
multiple genres get foreshadowed across the
collection. “The Other Stranger” by Dutch
outfit Doxa Sinistra sounds like a bouncy
mid-tempo Aphex Twin. Another Dutch group
– a duo called Muziekkamer – also provide
an album highlight of coarse drum machine
rhythms not a million miles from the bruising
modern productions of Perc, despite dating
back to the mid-80s.
80s Underground Cassette Culture
Volume 1 could function as a miniature Nurse
With Wound list for the the tape underground
of its chosen era, but it also documents an
alternative history of experimental music,
uninterested in the dominant Anglo-American
continuum. Most interesting is the hitherto
under-documented inventiveness of the
Belgian, Dutch and Spanish undergrounds
of the time, all represented on this excellent
compilation.
Tristan Bath